It's great. It's also incredibly dark, so be prepared for that.
If you like it and want even more of an existential beating, then you can follow it up with this.
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Is there any 'realistic' sci-fi about exploring space
- Thread starter Peru
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It's great. It's also incredibly dark, so be prepared for that.
If you like it and want even more of an existential beating, then you can follow it up with this.
You might also like "Pushing Ice" from the same author. And all his Revelation Space books, some of the best sci-fi out there. But Pushing Ice is a bit more near-future.
Regarding TV series I see that For All Mankind had already been mentioned a few times, which I would actually put above The Expanse. I read all the Expanse books and they're "entertaining" but read like they're written for TV and compared to other stuff out there not that strong. But the series are a fun romp for sure.
On screen, your best bet is probably The Expanse. There unfortunately isn't a ton of hard sci-fi out there. The Martian actually does a pretty good job with near-Earth space travel if you don't mind something more modest in scope.
Since you mention literature, you'll definitely have more luck there. There's a lot of older work from Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Banks and others that explore "realistic" space exploration (based on the science of the time).
There isn't a huge market for hard sci-fi so naturally, big ideas and tiny budgets end up going to print instead.
Since you mention literature, you'll definitely have more luck there. There's a lot of older work from Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Banks and others that explore "realistic" space exploration (based on the science of the time).
There isn't a huge market for hard sci-fi so naturally, big ideas and tiny budgets end up going to print instead.
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Peru you like arthouse movies? You might get into High Life. Just know it's very psychosexual but ultimately about being a good parent from messy circumstances. Robert Pattison and Juliette Binoche are great.If you like it and want even more of an existential beating, then you can follow it up with this.
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Yeah I was not too optimistic on mainstream tv and movies of this kind. I would love to see a new tv series attempt this with budget and seriousness.
I do and I should def get to watching that. Sounds good from your description as well.
I do and I should def get to watching that. Sounds good from your description as well.
I should probably emphasise that this is more a recommendation for if he watches and likes Aniara. It has some themes in common. Both are great if you want something off the beaten path, but they're not really what was asked for in the OP.
Now I'm very interested. I'm always bordering an existential crisis and very nihilistic so I doubt this can put me in a darker place. Looks like it's on Hulu. I'll have to put it off till October as I have other stuff I need to watch first.
Hard sci fi is rare outside of writing because it strips away all the fun stuff people want in their sci fi for a dour brutal reality that is total opposite of glamorous and exciting. Even space battles in hard sci fi are more about math than they are human drama and impressive tactical moves.
And where ships are designed so that "gravity" makes sense as well.
IKARIE XB-1 | Trailer
Ikarie XB 1Czechoslovakia 84 minsJindřich Polák’s pioneering sci-fi masterpiece is little known, but its DNA can be seen throughout the genre, from Star Trek...www.youtube.com
Fantastic film that is woefully underseen.
I watched this last week, definitely a good recommendation.
Blindsight is fantastic and realistic in many ways, but there are also vampires, so I don't know if it is realistic overall.
It is refreshing to read or see ships that are laid out like buildings with the engines in the basement. It's such a simple, logical thing that so much sci-fi just completely ignores in favor of magic gravity generators.
Honestly, you're playing with fire if you're already in a bad place. It's pretty damn dark.
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To some extent I get it.. On the other hand Interstellar did bigger box office number than anyone expected. If you can find human stories within this framework anything can sell.
For literature, highest recommendation goes to Mary Robinette Kowal's Lady Astronaut series, starting (chronologicaly and substantially) with The Calculating Stars. The setup: in 1952 a huge metorite obliterates much of the East Coast of the United States. Realizing that the greenhouse effect is going to make Earth uninhabitable in the future, humanity kicks off manned space exploration a decade or so early and a desperate rush begins to inhabit the stars.
These are wonderful novels, starring tremendous, complicated women fighting to be at the forefront of the project. The Calculating Stars won the Triple Crown of science fiction awards - Best Novel for the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards - and is absolutely top notch. It's essentially the first half of a duology that continues in The Fated Sky, but could be enjoyed as a stand alone novel - though I don't know why you'd want to stop there! I just finished the third novel in the series, The Relentless Moon, and it was just as good as the first two and is self-contained in a single chunky volume. If you want a realistic look at space exploration and all the challenges - both technical and cultural - to overcome to explore the solar system, here you go.
These are wonderful novels, starring tremendous, complicated women fighting to be at the forefront of the project. The Calculating Stars won the Triple Crown of science fiction awards - Best Novel for the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards - and is absolutely top notch. It's essentially the first half of a duology that continues in The Fated Sky, but could be enjoyed as a stand alone novel - though I don't know why you'd want to stop there! I just finished the third novel in the series, The Relentless Moon, and it was just as good as the first two and is self-contained in a single chunky volume. If you want a realistic look at space exploration and all the challenges - both technical and cultural - to overcome to explore the solar system, here you go.
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I wish more sci fi could be modelled on Kim Stanley Robinson's type. I would love a Star Trek that worked in that style. TV/Film sci fi is largely dominated by space opera melodrama though and it doesn't seem there's much room for other stuff, especially in television.
Not really. KSR's stuff has an air of optimism and positivity regarding the potential of humans. He portrays scientists as passionate, interesting people and valorizes what they do. Like Scientists as heroes but not in the action sense.
I haven't read the latest book by Weir yet, but both The Martian and Artemis are literally using space exploration concepts of today and turning them into central plot points.
All the characters do is based in things that in theory we could already build.
All the characters do is based in things that in theory we could already build.
I agree that The Exapnse isn't really about exploration (with the exception of season 4, which kind of takes a detour just to layout how hard actual space exploration would be), but I also think that kind of gets at how difficult it is to do hard sci fi about exploration. It's hard to keep space exploration interesting without throwing in some fantastical elements where they discover unexplained phenomenon or alien high tech or whatever. An attempt to make a space story purely grounded in currently understood science gets you Expanse stuff about space wars for asteroid mining rights and shit.
Hail Mary is mostly the same in that regard. It has a bit more speculative stuff wrapped into the plot, but nothing outside of our current understanding of science and physics.
Nonsense. The hard sci-fi category wouldn't exist if they didn't.
I think sci fi with no action is harder to get adapted to the screen, in the sense that the stories are not necessarily going to be elevated by the visual medium as much as a book that ask you to imagine space battles or a thrilling emergency taking place in space.
But you know, at the end of the day The Forever War is on the same boat as The Mars Trilogy, even if t has war on the title. Both pillars of the genre for decades, but not a single adaptation.
Tales of Pirx the Pilot might be a good book for you.
Seveneves is also good, if you disregard the (totally unnecessary) ending chapter.
Seveneves is also good, if you disregard the (totally unnecessary) ending chapter.
The Xeelee books by Stephen Baxter are pretty decent. Vacuum Diagrams is a good place to start as it's a collection of short stories set in the universe.
Yea Blindsight is one of my favourite scifi books, and it changed me a bit. The sequel Echopraxia is also pretty good, and Watts is working on the third book!
But stuff like 2001 and Tarkovsky's films are amazing visually. Or Star Trek the motion picture. Violence isn't the only spectacle to behold and I think it's more that audiences have become so acculturated to it that it makes it difficult to expand. I think it's more that tv/film in general have always appealed to conflict and melodrama and it's hard to get out of that zone. The grip almost feels like it's tightening these days, in a sense and we haven't seen much popularized variations on sci-fi in tv/film (more so tv though) and are a little entrenched in conflict/melodrama.
It actually feels almost like an outlier now, but Star Trek TNG being so different in it's minimal interpersonal conflict and melodrama and rarer instances of violence stands out nowadays. Almost feels like it couldn't get made today. Even now people still joke and throw shade at the Roddenberry edict back then regarding conflict. Like instead of trying to work with that idea and maybe expand it, play with it a little more, it's more about 'lol so stupid amirite' or whatever.
You can sometimes tell when the author is leaning on a particular science discipline as the backbone of their story. People have mentioned neurology and Blindsight for instance.
I'll recommend Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky for zoology.
I'll recommend Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky for zoology.
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I really recommend Project Hail Mary. I devoured that book in 3 or 4 sittings. It still has flaws but they aren't that big of a deal. The plot is still reallisric.
The Martian, Alien, 2001, and Interstellar. The latter three sure have their bogus elements, but they still capture that "realisitic" feel quite well.
Ad Astra sorta fits the bill, but the ridiculousness of some of the scenes kinda breaks that illusion. I haven't seen either, but Moon and Sunshine look like they might fit the part too.
The Expanse looks realistic, but that's it. Just because it's not as far-flung as something like Star Trek or Dune doesn't make it "hard" sci-fi.
Ad Astra sorta fits the bill, but the ridiculousness of some of the scenes kinda breaks that illusion. I haven't seen either, but Moon and Sunshine look like they might fit the part too.
The Expanse looks realistic, but that's it. Just because it's not as far-flung as something like Star Trek or Dune doesn't make it "hard" sci-fi.
Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson felt felt pretty realistic in terms of how establishing a Martian colony would go.
The same interstellar that had them on a strict timeline and had them decide to dive right towards a black hole's gravity well first thing? The interstellar that was resolved through timetravel? That interstellar?
another one for Aniara...
this isn't a spoiler (as the film is about time passing), but those two final time jumps had my mind spinning!
this isn't a spoiler (as the film is about time passing), but those two final time jumps had my mind spinning!
2001 is what you are looking for. Even more amazing that it came out a year before the moon landing.
Knights of Sidonia in the Anime front is a pretty intense hard sci fi in S1. Does have a little fanservice and, like the Expanse, it has an antagonistic element that is very much in the fantasy side, but a lot of the best scenes play into the harshness of space.
S2 is a step down and gets way too Haremy, but still had some good moments.
Might be a final S3 at some point...
S2 is a step down and gets way too Haremy, but still had some good moments.
Might be a final S3 at some point...
I don't really consider Interstellar hard scifi. It takes a lot of liberties especially the ending.
I'm not too familiar with their work but a big feature of hard scifi for fans is it does away with a lot of the easy "outs" so to speak that softer scifi gets away with and leans on to its benefit. You can still have optimism and positivity but the hard scifi deals with the fact that traveling through space is not something humanity was never intended to do and will be a grueling, brutal affair.
Oh, so you've gone through a black hole and know how what happens, huh
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